Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal isn’t going to become law any time soon, if ever. But what if it did?
What would its impacts be on Americas’ economy, it’s infrastructure, it’s ability to remain the world’s economic powerhouse and it’s social fabric?
How many – and whose – jobs would be lost vs. how many new ones would be created and who would fill them? How much tax income would be wiped out by lost jobs and company failures or defections to other nations vs. how much new tax income would be generated? What would the nation’s Gross Domestic Product be then as opposed to what it is today? And how would American culture be different then from what it is today – and is that a good or bad thing?
Some – or all – of those questions are too broad to provide detailed answers in the relatively small space here. And the Green New Deal “plan” (if you can call Ocasio-Cortez' jumble of aspirational hopes a real “plan”) provides no road map on how to get there, or even clear directions on where "there" is.
Still, let’s give it a try by narrowing our focus to the impacts resulting from just one of those aspirational hopes accompanying the "plan" sponsored by the newly-famous freshman Democrat Congresswoman from New York and veteran Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey, also a Democrat. The resolution’s rollout last week was accompanied by explanations from Ocasio-Cortez’s office (some of which have since been taken down) that included the goal of eliminating or all-but eliminating the need for airlines within 10 years by building great high speed rail lines that would make travel by air no longer necessary
That New Green Deal resolution - it’s not actually a “bill,” or proposed piece of legislation - is backed by 67 co-sponsors including several declared or likely candidates for the Democrat nomination for President. Republican Senate Majority Leaders Mitch McConnell promises to put the New Green Deal resolution up for a vote soon as a way of forcing Democrats to go on the record as supporting or opposing the highly controversial idea.
It also is important as we examine the potential, even likely impacts of reaching Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal goal of eliminating the need for air travel to keep in mind that the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change calculates that air travel – commercial, private and military combined – produces just 3.5 percent of the emissions responsible for anthropogenic climate change. That includes both carbon dioxide- and non-carbon cioxide-driven emissions. In other words, if Climate Change is happening – either at truly alarming rates or at historically average rates that really aren’t cause for alarm – air travel is responsible for only a tiny percentage of the what’s causing it. So, for discussion’s sake, let’s assume that it’s now the year 2031, and air travel in America is no longer required by, or available to the masses. That would mean:
- Most if not all of the $1.5 trillion in annual U.S. economic activity directly or indirectly attributable to the airline industry would disappear. Airlines For America, the airline industry’s lobby group claims that U.S. airlines are directly or indirectly responsible for more than 10 million jobs. The passenger and cargo airlines themselves currently employ more than 700,000 with most of those considered to be high-paying jobs. In 2016, the average wage for an airline employee was about $86,000 compared to the overall national private-sector average of about $59,000.
- Travel to and from places like Hawaii, Alaska, the Caribbean, and even Europe and Asia would tumble sharply as travel time balloons to days aboard ships rather than hours aboard airplanes. Lots of business travel, the biggest source of airlines’ revenue and driver of their economic impact on the nation, would evaporate as the ability to jet overnight to London, Tokyo, Singapore or hundreds of other foreign business centers disappears. How many deals valued at how many billions of dollars annually simply would stop being done because of the inability of investors and corporate leaders to travel easily and quickly around the globe? The answers are unknowable but almost certainly crippling. Domestic air travel, both commercial and private, also would dry up. In total, U.S. airlines alone generate more than $220 billion a year in revenues, a figure that likely will rise above $300 billion by 2030 so long a drastic policy change like the New Green Deal is not implemented.
- Some of that travel activity displaced by a New Green Deal would shift to the highways. And, if the dream of high speed rail blossoms rapidly some of that displaced air travel could shift to that new mode of transportation. But even the fastest high-speed maglev trains today travel at speeds of only around 400 mph - slower than commercial jets - and can do so only over relatively short distances of 200 to 400 miles. At that rate, transcontinental trips would take two or three days and the number of travelers would be strictly limited by safety-driven limits on train capacity and spacing. Furthermore, rapid travel between cities not served by high-speed rail would become impossible. Thus, a huge percentage of travel demand would simply dry up. Note: true high-speed rail service does not exist today in the United States, and prospects of developing adequate high-speed rail capacity in just 10 years are quite poor because of high costs, legal barriers, and high investment and construction costs. New California Governor Gavin Newsom this week said he’s putting his state’s controversial, way-behind schedule, and way over-budget plan to build a high-speed rail line from the Los Angeles area to the San Francisco area on the way, way back burner because of its costs and technical challenges
- The knock-on effects on employment among industry vendors, airports, cargo forwarding companies, hotels, and other travel-related companies are very difficult to estimate. But the number of jobs lost almost certainly would be in the high tens, maybe even the hundreds of thousands. And that’s not counting the impact on energy industry jobs, which would be under intense pressure by the broader effort to dramatically cut the use of fossil fuels as part of the Green New Deal.
- Aircraft manufacturers Boeing and Airbus likely could survive but shrink dramatically with demand for new planes in the U.S. falling to zero, demand outside the U.S. shrinking too, and the market being flooded with thousands of late-model used airliners available at very low prices. Major makers of avionics, aircraft parts, and suppliers of major sub-assemblies and raw materials also would come under extreme pressure. Many, if not all U.S. general aviation aircraft manufacturers almost certainly would be pushed into bankruptcy along with many of the vendors whose products those manufacturers no longer would require. In short, the economic damage to the U.S. aerospace manufacturing sector would be staggering. The Aerospace Industries Associations says 1.2 million workers are employed directly by U.S. aerospace companies while another 3.2 million jobs are indirectly tied to aerospace. In general, about 60 percent of the those 4.4 million jobs are tied to the manufacture of commercial aircraft, 35 percent to making military aircraft, and 5 percent to producing general aviation planes and helicopters. Thus the jobs of 65 percent, or 2.86 million of those 4.4 million people could be kicked to the curb.
- The United States, the preeminent nation in aircraft manufacturing in technology would risk losing its global edge in advanced aviation and aerospace technology, development and aircraft design and production. Certainly foreign competitors likely would be under similarly extreme pressure because when the U.S. aviation market catches a cold the global market become vulnerable to catching pneumonia. But demand from U.S. buyers is the key factor that traditionally has powered U.S. aerospace manufacturers' dominance, and that of their key vendors. So they would stand to suffer more, and suffer faster than their foreign competitors under a New Green Deal scenario.
- The commercial and investment banks, insurance companies, investment funds, and super-wealthy investors who provide the financing for airlines’ operations and airplanes could be pushed toward or into insolvency by the collapse of the market. With jetliners today costing around $100 million on average, $500 trillion or more in aircraft and related asset value in the United States alone could be wiped out.
To be sure, these potential outcomes and estimated dollar impacts are speculative. But they – and more, similar dire consequences - are all within the realm of reasonable – even likely – expected results should the New Green Deal goal of eliminating most or all demand for air travel be achieved. Of course, eliminating most or all air travel demand in just one decade is an unfathomably aggressive time frame given the cost, technical and legal challenges. And yes, the number of Americans whose jobs would be threatened, and the politically powerful vested interests that would be push back hard against any such a national goal make eliminating air travel from American society an extremely remote possibility.
Still, with the underlying political and economic concepts behind the idea of a New Green Deal beginning to catch in some political circles and among those most concerned about climate change, it’s wise to begin trying to understand both how difficult such a change would be to achieve, and how costly it would be both to the overall U.S. economy and to individual Americans and their families.
